In a recent report from the New England Journal of Medicine it was reported that in Scotland where smoking in public places has been banned that at the same time, apparently as a result of this legislation, Coronary heart disease went down by 17%

I have yet to see many studies that show the result of banning smoking in public places. Back when I was a smoker and when I was quitting smoking I am not sure that this really made much of a difference. I wanted to quit smoking because it is so unhealthy, smoking was expensive even then and the banning of smoking in certain public places made it inconvenient.

The real problem with quitting smoking I believe is the fact that governments still love the money that they get from tobacco sales even though they have outlawed most of the places that people can smoke. Smokers are stuck being able to buy smokes but have less and less places to smoke them in. It is really time for governments to decide if banning places is enough or make smoking illegal. Come on one way or the other but as we all know most governments are spineless when it comes to pissing off anyone.

Anyway. I think that years ago I had so much trouble quitting because smoking is very difficult and there is not nearly as good a support system as is needed. Every non-smoker (that never smoked) just says that it is dirty and that you should just go ahead and quit. I know how difficult quitting smoking really is so I started a quit smoking email course to help people out. Check it out now, it is free and helpful.

Thanks for visiting. To get started why not subscribe to the 21 day fitness plan at the top of this page. Look in the red box, it is right there.. Thanks Bill

I think I have probably made it pretty clear on this blog that I am not in favor of Bariatric surgery as a method to lose weight becuase it is dangerous, not always effective, and diet and exercise are not needed to lose theweight which means that your health is not improved as much even though the weight is lost.

The problem is however for the morbidly obese this is sometimes the only options. So here are some post surgery tips

Weight loss surgery can surely help you lose weight, but it won’t help you keep the weight off. What I mean is that if you lose weight today but gain it back sometime later, what is the use of weight loss?

Have yourself checked up - If you are gaining weight in the post-surgery period, you need to visit a doctor to make sure that you are not suffering from any disease that is causing weight gain. Once the possibility of such a disease is ruled out, it is time to follow the next step. Read the rest of this entry »

I have written before about the best way to suntan and the best ways to get rid of a sunburn but now that Summer is here and I really do get concerned about the people that read my suntanning articles.

I worry that people will get sunburned, I know that people can easily get skin cancer from overexposure to the sun but also I remember how hard I tried in my late teens and twenties to get the best suntan possible with the skin type that I have.

These sun worshipers bake themselves carefully and with proper apparent care. They are careful to turn and twist their bodies in a way best calculated to get an even, rich suntan over as much of their skin as possible. They slather themselves with the latest lotion that promises to keep out harmful sun-ray effects and most importantly guarantees a deep tan.

“Ah, it feels so good,” they say. And I, with a trace of the sun worshiper still in me, agree. The warmth feels like a balm. Vitamin D is brought to the body by the sunlight’s effect on the skin. The pimples of acne can diminish or disappear when the sun’s ultraviolet rays play upon them.

Any teen-ager who winces with pain of sunburn when clapped on the back can testify that the extra time in the sun is never good. For everyone there is an amount and degree of sun beyond which danger lies.

Even a person who tans readily and easily may get harmful changes in his skin if he has too much exposure. Read the rest of this entry »

Eczema is much less frequent in adolescence than in the first years of childhood. In teen-agers it usually causes a thickening, dryness, and redness of the skin. Itching, and at times pain, may accompany the rash. At this age, eczema is most frequently found in the folds of the elbows and knees and on the wrists. Another common location is the back of the neck and ears.

Eczema may bring scaling of the skin. At times there is marked splitting of the skin and sometimes blisters appear, filled with clear fluid or pus.The cause of eczema is usually an allergy. Though in infancy, the allergens (allergy causers) are nearly always foods, in later years the eczema is just as likely to be a reaction to wool, nylon, or other materials. Reactions to various plants can also cause the rash. The reactions may be from touching the plants or from inhaling their pollens.

The emotions can play an important role in eczema. If a person is anxious or tense, he is more likely to scratch and pick at the lesions. This can lead to trouble from secondary bacterial infections, or just from the mechanical irritation and injury to the skin. When the eczema has a nervous or emotional root, the medical term for it is neurodermatitis. Read the rest of this entry »

I have been a contact lense wearer for a lot of years now, probably over 25 years and have ran into more and more roadblocks to buying contact lenses over the years. What happens is I will wear contacts for 5 years or so and then switch back to glasses for a couple of years. Here is the process that I go through to get contact lenses.

1. Get an eye exam and new prescription

2. Shop around for a cheap place to buy lenses

3. Pay some sort of fitting fee and get a 6 month supply of my contacts lenses

This time around I decided to short circuit the contact lense buying process. I hate having to pay a fitting fee to buy contact lenses and they are all overpriced at the stores anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

I have often thought that exercise can help get rid of the symptoms and even the effects of Diabetes and today I see that there is yet another study that says that exercise can at the very least stop you from getting type 2 diabetes. It is one thing to say that exercise and good health stops you from getting sick but if you are not sick some will argue that you are just genetically predisposed to not getting sick.

Group-based diet and exercise lifestyle interventions over six years can prevent or delay diabetes for up to 14 years after the intervention period. But whether lifestyle interventions also lead to reduced cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality remains unclear. These are the conclusions of authors of an Article in this week’s Diabetes Special Issue of The Lancet.

While several major clinical trials around the world have shown the effectiveness of lifestyle interventions to reduce diabetes incidence in people with impaired glucose tolerance*, questions remain over how long post-intervention these strategies remain effective. Professor Guangwei Li, China-Japan Friendship Hospital, Beijing, China, and Dr Ping Zhang, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA, and colleagues did the China Da Qing Diabetes Prevention Outcome Study (CDQDPOS), which followed-up patients 20 years after enrollment. Read the rest of this entry »

This is a story that just supports the way that we live as a society and it is not just about quitting smoking but also about drinking, losing weight, doing drugs and buying new cars. The fact is that when people that we are around and share values with make a change in their lives then we do too.

You may have heard sometime in the past that if you want to make more money then hang around people that make more money. The same is true if you want to get in shape, hang out with people that are in shape. We all pick up on the habits of those around us and reading about the following study helps us to understand that changes do in fact come in a large part due to those around us.

A team of researchers who showed that obesity can spread person-to-person has found a similar pattern with smoking cessation: A smoker is more likely to kick the habit if a spouse, friend, co-worker or sibling did.

What’s more, smokers tend to quit in groups, and those who don’t stop puffing increasingly find themselves pushed to the edge of their social circles, the researchers found. Read the rest of this entry »

As we go through the day our blood pressure just naturally raises and lowers depending on a lot of conditions. What most people are most interested in is a regular resting blood pressure as high blood pressure and hypertension are a very strong indicator toward present and future heart problems

The Effect Of Sleep on Blood Pressure

Sleep causes a fall in blood pressure. The maximum depth occurs about two hours after falling asleep. In sound, untroubled slumber a pressure of 130/80 might dip to 100/70. It once was thought that this drop in pressure was the cause of sleep, the reasoning being that a lower pressure delivers less blood to the brain resulting in mental sluggishness and hence sleep. Now it is known that this blood pressure decline is the result, not the cause, of sleep. As morning approaches, the blood pressure drifts slowly upward as the subject begins the awakening process. Any interference with sound sleep causes the blood pressure to rise. Read the rest of this entry »

Fitness, Health and Earth day seem like maybe they are not very well linked at all but I think that there is a case to be made that being greener is a lot healthier way to live.

Being the father of two your kids we have been bombarded this week with Earth day events and stories from school. I remember when I was growing up the whole recycling concept was just picking up steam and a few years later in Vancouver we had curb side recycling, something that my adopted city of Calgary does not yet have

Anyway being green, I believe, is a lot more global then it used to be. Sure we in North America are the greatest consumers of all kinds of products but  around the world our influences are being felt here are a few ways that I can think.

Nice bright fruits and veggies - I can get a banana or an apple any day of the year from the supermarket. One of the many ways that farmers in other countries make my food more appetizing is to use pesticides and fertilizers to make the fruit look better in the supermarket. Not good for the environment or even me personally. Read the rest of this entry »

I heard a little about this a couple of weeks ago. I have always had the idea that joint replacemtn was happening on people that were very physical, mostly runners that are really pushing their hip and knee joints but this is simply not true. The largest cause by far for knee and hip replacements is people being overweight. Obesity plays a big part in the wearing of joints

In 1997, about 60.2% of primary hip replacements and 69.1% of primary knee replacements were performed in patients ages 65 to 84, Sunny Kim, Ph.D., of Florida International University here, reported in the April 15 issue of Arthritis Care & Research.

But by 2004, the corresponding proportions were 52.1% and 58.4%, respectively.

In 1997, 45- to 64-year-olds accounted for 26.5% and 25.6% of primary total hip and knee replacements, respectively. These proportions grew to 36% and 36.4%, respectively, in 2004.

Dr. Kim noted that more joint replacements in a younger and heavier population will likely increase the need for revisions with lengthier operative times, longer hospital stays, and higher complication rates than primary replacements. Read the rest of this entry »